Mirador, Northern Peten, Guatemala

In partnership with The Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES) and APANAC (Friends of the Natural and Cultural Patrimony of Guatemala)

Executive Summary

Due to the unflagging support of Global Heritage Fund (GHF)’s Trustees for Global Heritage and our Guatemalan and international Partners in Conservation, 2005 has been a landmark year in our work to save the Mirador and establish Central America’s largest new national park in over thirty years.

Mirador National Park is now on the agenda at the highest levels of the Guatemalan government to establish a permanently protected 580,000 acres wilderness, archaeological and wildlife park - the Cradle of Maya Civilization - in the heart of the Maya Biosphere.

Mirador is being modeled after the highly successful Tikal National Park which was first established in 1972. Last year, Tikal generated over $180 million in tourism revenues for Guatemala and has not lost one acre to fires or illegal logging since it was established. During that same time, the Maya Biosphere Preserve has literally burned to the ground, losing over 65% of its forest in the past ten years, according to the World Wildlife Fund. In the past five years, the burning, clearing and destruction of the Maya Biosphere has accelerated (see NASA 2000-2005 Fire Analysis).

GHF-FARES Progress in 2005
Critical accomplishments this year which have moved Mirador closer to securing permanent protection and sustainable development include:

UNESCO World Heritage Nomination. Mirador is the Guatemalan government’s number one new nomination for UNESCO World Heritage designation with the backing of key government ministries and pending support from Congress, the Presidency of Guatemala, and involvement of community stakeholders.

Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Support to the Guatemalan Government. IDB has funded the stakeholder consultation and planning process to work with key logging concessions and communities in and around the Mirador. Over $20 million has been proposed in funding for key infrastructure projects in the Peten area to support tourism and economic development (see attached article – El Periodico).

New Critical Funding Secured. Global Heritage Fund funded over one million dollars in 2005 for scientific conservation, GIS mapping, master planning, community development, park services, training, partnerships, and nature and wildlife research and surveys. Major GHF funding came from The Swift Family Foundation, The Foundation for Free Expression, The Thornton Foundation, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, The Townshend Family Foundation, The Morgan Family Foundation, The Franklin and Catherine Johnson Foundation, Gilman Ordway Foundation and other generous foundations and individual donors.

Completed Critical Conservation at El Mirador. Some of the most important and endangered pyramids and temples were restored and conserved this year including structural consolidation of La Danta pyramid in El Mirador, one of the largest known pyramids in the world. GHF funding supported consolidation and structural engineering for La Danta’s endangered summit structures, main temples, stairways and Preclassic Maya sculptures.

Undertook Key Biological Research and Flora and Fauna Studies. Our new Director of Biological Conservation, Professor Cesar Castañeda, Dean of Tropical Botany for University Del Valle de Guatemala, and his team are conducting a complete inventory of the floral species of Mirador, and shortly, will initiate jaguar and wildlife habitat studies. The Mirador is known to contain at least 40 threatened wildlife species, 200 native and migratory birds, 300 trees, and 2,000 different flora species. Mirador’s five unique biospheres are being mapped and studied at this time to provide needed insight for planning and world heritage designation.

Completed Mapping and GIS of Mirador’s Largest Cities and Settlements including Tintal, Wakna, Nakbe, Xulnal and El Mirador – each as large as or larger than Tikal. Over 20,000 acres of forests, unique ecosystems and ancient cities have been mapped in the past year. Under our Global Heritage Network (GHN) program, new consolidated GHF-FARES-developed GIS Database integrates all 26 Maya cities, numerous ancient causeways, and hundreds of Preclassic and Classic Maya temples, pyramids and settlements showing the full scale of Mirador’s cultural and natural landscape for the first time.

Trained and Equipped Mirador Park Rangers and Guide Association to protect Mirador and its natural and cultural patrimony. GHF and FARES funding with APANAC completed Mirador’s first Community Visitor Center and funded installation of Carmelita Village’s water system. A total of 28 Park Rangers were funded and 40 new tourism guides from the local communities were trained and equipped.

Completed the Engineering and Feasibility Study for the Mirador Railway, an eco-friendly narrow-gauge tourist railway into Mirador that will transport up to 40,000 visitors per year. Mirador Rail enables on a day-long adventure into Mirador’s 26 ancient Maya cities in a pristine wilderness environment. The Mirador Rail concept is being presented to private investors and the Guatemalan government for consideration this year.

Above: GHF has led the design and engineering studies for the eco-friendly Mirador Railway, an innovative low-impact solution for tourism in a road-less archaeological and wilderness preserve. Below: Location of Mirador in the heart of the Maya Biosphere Reserve.

Mirador “is a world wonder – and needs to be protected. We may be talking about the single most ambitious conservation and development project related to protected areas proposed in the Americas.”

Roan McNab, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Travel & Leisure

Mirador National Park is one of the only opportunities in the world to protect a large tract of intact tropical forests under a sustainable and profitable economic model.

Global Heritage Fund and our Partners in Conservation now have governmental support, a world-wide network of conservation leaders and experts, and necessary funding to help ensure the permanent protection of Mirador National Park by the Guatemalan government.

Private, international funding is critical in the next five years to ensure we meet our goals for permanent protection, tourism development, park operations, conservation and research.

Sustained international support is crucial as Guatemala remains one of the least developed countries in Latin America with its own challenges in governance, development and recovery from recent flooding and hurricanes in October, 2005.

Above: The Preclassic Maya archaeological sites of Mirador are the largest and oldest known in Central America, with five cities larger than Tikal National Park (lower right). Like Tikal, Mirador will provide the permanent protection needed for the core tropical rainforests of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, within a clear, naturally defined park.

Above: GHF- APANAC-FARES and the ACOFOP President Juan Trujillo share the moment at the ribbon cutting for Carmelita’s restored water system (broken for 3 years).

Above: Growing tourism into Mirador is bringing many new jobs to local communities.

GHF Partners in Conservation – FARES
Scientific conservation and mapping of the Mirador is being led by Leader in Conservation Dr. Richard Hansen of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES). FARES Guatemala have an impressive multi-disciplinary team of conservation leaders including the Dean of the Tropical Biology Department of Del Valle University undertaking biological studies of forestry, wildlife and the entire Mirador ecosystem. FARES and its key personnel have been working in the critical research, excavation and conservation of Mirador for over twenty years.

Above: FARES Leader in Conservation Dr. Richard Hansen and colleague unveil a world-class tomb was discovered at Tintal near the edge of Mirador, reinforcing the urgency to protect the ancient cities which are being destroyed by looters.

Above: New maps of Mirador show all major cities, including five larger than Tikal, combined with a unique network of ancient causeways between major cities and sites. (Click image to enlarge)

Establishing Mirador National Park

With the help of hundreds of tireless volunteers and conservation leaders, Global Heritage Fund and its partners are investing millions of dollars and providing scientific expertise, advocacy, key partnerships and government lobbying in achieving:

• 1. National Park status in Guatemala
• 2. UNESCO World Heritage designation
• 3. $10 Million for the first 5 years of park operations

A two-fold strategy is being implemented. We must succeed in protecting the forests and sites that remain before they are logged and destroyed, and their tourism potential lost forever. We must also be successful in the conservation and presentation of Mirador’s amazing archaeological sites with investments in infrastructure to jumpstart tourism (now over 3,000 visitors a year). At the same time, we must work with the communities, the government and private investors to develop the tourism infrastructure to enable economic benefits to be shared across a broad spectrum of society.

GHF estimates establishing the Mirador National Park will require $10 million over five years for park operations, conservation, development and research once Mirador is declared a National Park.

Progress in 2005

Mapping and GIS
For the first time, a complete map of the primary ancient Maya cities, over 100 kilometers of ancient roadways, and the five unique biospheres of Mirador have been consolidated in a single database for research and formal park designation. Over sixty persons have been involved in the surveying of Mirador this year.

Josie Thompson, GHF leader of our Global Heritage Network, secured donations of over $120,000 in software and hardware, installed GIS systems in both Guatemala and the USA, and integrated all existing maps and surveys into a single, consolidated database for use by all scientists and researchers around the world. A complete fire damage map was created showing the encroaching burning into the Mirador over the past five years based on NASA satellite data.

Master Conservation Planning
In 2005, the Guatemalan government developed a new draft Master Conservation Plan  of the archaeological sites within Mirador under the Ministry of Culture detailing:

Wildlife Conservation and Biological Studies
One of Mirador’s most unique attributes is the diversity of forest types and the wildlife distribution. The Director of Biological Conservation, Professor Cesar Castañeda and Dean of Tropical Botany for the University Del Valle and his team have found over 40 threatened wildlife species, 200 native and migratory birds, 300 species of trees and 2,000 different flora. Dr. Castañeda and his team have documented the wide range of its forest types within a contained ecosystem, including the five primary ecosystems of palm forest (huanales), ramon forest (ramonales), wetland marshes (civales), high canopy forest (zapotales), and tree- covered seasonal swamps or bajos (tintales).

Valuable renewable resources are also contained within the Mirador such as floral palms (xate), allspice (pimienta) and chewing gum base (chicle), and more recently, ramon nuts (Brosimum alicastrum) as a high protein supplement. In addition, these rainforests are also an important source of oxygen, carbon fixation and may also provide important cosmetics and natural pharmaceuticals.

Mirador is home to five of the six species of cat found in Guatemala, and the largest jaguar preserve in Central America, with an estimated 3-400 jaguars living in Mirador’s dense forests. Protecting the jaguar, which only exists in the Americas, requires assessing, prioritizing and conserving not only the individual population, but also the wide variety of ecological interactions associated with them.

Mirador is crucial to the ecological processes that determine the survival of species requiring large area extensions for their habitat, such as the jaguar, puma, tapir, anteater, collared peccary, brocket and white tailed deer, and, along its southern borders, and the scarlet macaw. The unusual biodiversity of Mirador and the fact that it borders the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve to the north (World Heritage Cultural and Natural Site), and the Tikal National Park to the south (World Heritage Cultural and Natural Site) makes it a crucial environmental zone which will allow a biological corridor of sufficient size to guarantee species preservation, and of strategic importance for natural migration routes, hunting patterns, pollenization patterns, and watershed and hydrological systems.

In depth research using pollen core samples has yielded more than 17 vertical meters of well-preserved pollens in stratified contexts providing a comprehensive and chronologically accurate assessment of the botanical and agricultural history of the Mirador dating back to 10,000 years B.C.

Park Services & Guide Associations
Global Heritage Fund (GHF) and our Partners in Conservation – FARES, APANAC and ACTUNAC have established the Park Ranger and Community Development Program with the support of major foundations and individual donors. Major objectives of training and equipping the Mirador Park Service and Guide Association were completed including:

• Funding for salaries and training for 28 full-time Park Rangers in the following
  areas:
  
• Park Services
  
• Law Enforcement
  
• Nature and Wildlife Conservation
  
• Visitor Services and Security
  
• Completion of the New Community Visitor Center in Carmelita including
  Eco-Lodge, Store and Orientation Center
  
• Equipping and training the Carmelita Guide Association to lead visitor groups
  into Mirador
  
• Securing unanimous support from all elected Mayors and community officials
  
• Completing linking all houses to a new water system for Carmelita
  
• Helping to establish two new Community Associations formed in the villages
  surrounding Mirador (ACTUNAC and ACODESSA)
  
• Providing new equipment, satellite phones and computers for Carmelita and
  Dos Aguadas Guide Associations.
  
• Donated and installed 32 computers systems in the schools of Carmelita,
  Pasadita, Cruce a la Colorada and Dos Aguadas.
  

Above: Literacy classes for park rangers from the community often involve their younger family members as they are more educated in reading and writing. Below : Mirador Summits. In 2004 and 2005, GHF sponsored stakeholder summits in Guatemala and Washington DC, inviting all leading conservation groups, government agencies and other stakeholders. Below Left: Lic. Eduardo Gonzales, Chief of Staff for the President of Guatemala and the Minister of Culture. Below Right: Juan Trujillo, President of ACOFOP, association of logging concessions.

Guatemalan Government
Since being elected, President Oscar Berger has initiated direct consultations with local communities, civil society, non-governmental institutions, cooperative organizations, mayors and political leaders of northern Peten.

The Ministry of Culture has defined the Mirador as a Cultural Landscape containing the Cradle of Maya Civilization. The Ministry is requesting National Park status from the Guatemalan Congress and the Presidency. President Oscar Berger has made the Mirador initiative a top national priority.

The Executive Secretary of the Presidency, Eduardo Gónzález, is coordinating this effort so that the project becomes a "Objective of The State" in cooperation with the Ministers of Environment, Culture, Agriculture, Development and Finance under the La Comisión Específica para la Integración y Desarrollo de Petén y la Comisión del Ambiente, Ecología y Recursos Naturales. Guatemalan congressional legislation is currently in process.

Community Support
Community support, despite entrenched logging interests, has been surprisingly strong. The mayor along with half the adult population of the largest community of Mirador signed a letter to the President of Guatemala supporting the Mirador project.

According to published sources, a structured stakeholder engagement process was established beginning in 2004 by the Guatemalan government, funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The goal is to enable the government to engage with all community leaders and logging concessions to solidify a joint strategy for establishing Mirador while ensuring communities can continue managed forest extraction and develop new long-term community-based tourism businesses.

Leading Guatemalan NGOs in Guatemala including APANAC, FundaSelva, Tropical Rainforest Foundation, as well as important companies and business including Cementos Progresso, Tikal Jets, Aldan, S.A., Helicopters of Guatemala and others, have made major financial commitments for scientific research on the Mirador biosphere and wildlife and community development and training in the Town of Carmelita. Guatemala’s Novella Foundation is also supporting community development and stakeholder negotiations to help bring a long-term solution for the people of the Peten in communities surrounding Mirador.

The Challenge Ahead
Global Heritage Fund needs continued support from international donors and Guatemalan in-country private funding to maintain the strong momentum we have begun. In the next three years (2006-2008), our goals are:

• 1. Secure National Park status in Guatemala
• 2. Secure UNESCO World Heritage designation
• 3. Secure $10 Million for the first 5 years of park operations

Major support is needed for scientific conservation and research, building the Park Service, lobbying for Guatemalan legislation, and securing international designation of Mirador as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Mirador represents our last chance to protect what is left of the Maya Biosphere Reserve and its endangered wildlife, tropical forests and ancient Maya cities.

Uncontrolled burning, with little enforcement or protection, has resulted in most of the Maya Biosphere disappearing since it was established just twenty years ago, according to World Wildlife Fund. Looting, poaching, uncontrolled road building, illegal settlement and unsupervised logging are threatening to destroy the last major intact natural biosphere and best-preserved cultural landscape of the earliest ancient Maya kingdoms.

More than 15% of the forests within the Mirador have already burned since 2002 when Mirador was first designated a Special Protected Area. It is a difficult and complex conservation effort to save Mirador involving over 40 major stakeholders ranging from local communities to industrial logging concessions.

Mirador comprises the very heart of the Maya Biosphere with five unique forest and wetland ecosystems and is the best-preserved jaguar habitat in Central America. With new logging roads and population growth around the Mirador, heavy wildlife poaching is creating an ‘Empty Forest.’

These are just a few of the challenges to establishing a viable and sustainable Mirador National Park- but we are making strong progress. Global Heritage Fund, FARES, APANAC and our other partners are working together to make Mirador National Park a reality. Over the next three years, we expect to make strong progress in conservation, legislation and approval of the Mirador Master Conservation Plan through a series of collaborative planning and stakeholder summits.

Above: Satellite photo showing one day of wildfires on April 18th 2003 throughout the Maya Biosphere around Mirador that closed schools from Houston to New Orleans in the United States.

An Environmental Catastrophe: The “Maya Biosphere”

It is estimated we have lost over 64% of the Maya Biosphere’s native forests in the past
10 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Without these last remaining forests,
we will lose one of our last major sources of oxygen renewal, along with a paralleled
wildlife habitat and many endangered species of jaguar, wild cats, birds and other
mammals. New stronger and enforced legal protection through sustainable wilderness
and archaeological parks is necessary to reverse the accelerating damage under the
current status quo of uncontrolled logging, burning, looting and poaching across vast
lawless, unpatrolled areas which have failed to stem the rapid destruction of the last
remaining native tropical forests.

A Model for Success: Tikal National Park
Tikal National Park is a highly effective and proven model for permanent protection of
the forests and wildlife using the cultural riches of an archaeological park as the means
for rainforest and wildlife preservation in Guatemala. Tikal and the smaller sites of
Seibal, Aguateca and Quirigua National Parks in Guatemala are a testament to the
effectiveness of archaeological parks for permanent protection of native rainforests
and archaeological sites.

An estimated 28 million visitors have visited Guatemala since Tikal was first established.
Tikal generated over $200 million in tourism revenues for Guatemala in 2002 and 2003.
Like the nearby Tikal National Park, Mirador’s world-class archaeology, including
the largest and oldest known Maya cities, provides the base economic and scientific
engine to enable permanent protection of over 580,000 acres of rainforest and wildlife
habitat.

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Mirador- GHF Leaders in Conservation
Dr. Richard Hansen, Director
Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES)

None of the progress herein would be possible without the decades of dedication and professional experience in Mirador of Dr. Richard Hansen, Project Director of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES) and his Guatemalan colleagues and friends. He is a visionary leader with deep love for Guatemala, its history and people, who has dedicated his life to saving its vanishing natural and cultural heritage. He is a true professional leading world-class archaeology, conservation and community-building in the most difficult of environments.

The project is being directed by GHF Leader in Conservation, Dr. Richard Hansen, Director of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES) and faculty with the Department of Anthropology and the American Indian Studies Program at Idaho State University.

Under Dr. Hansen, FARES has directed the ecological and conservation programs in the Mirador for the past 17 years (since 1987), and has worked there since 1979. He is assisted by Guatemalan expert and archaeologist Edgar Suyuc, the former director of National Patrimony for the country, and a staff of experts and field managers with years of experience in the area. Dr. Hansen has also brought together more than forty distinguished scholars and specialists from 34 universities and research institutions throughout the world to work with the Mirador project in a multi-disciplinary focus. This work has resulted in 174 published papers and books from project members.

Appendix A - GHF Progress in 2005

Appendix - Press Articles

In Guatemala, A Battle Over Logs And a Lost Kingdom Mr. Hansen Aims to Preserve Vast Mayan Ruin as Park; Skeptical, Villagers Fight By BOB DAVIS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL November 12, 2005
Richard Hansen with a tamale bowl his crew recovered at Mirador. EL MIRADOR, Guatemala -- Deep in the Guatemalan jungle, Richard Hansen uncovered huge Mayan carvings in the 1980s that were sculpted well before Christ, evidence that Mayan civilization flourished hundreds of years earlier than historians had believed. A decade later, the archaeologist discovered the likely reason for the civilization's collapse: The Maya had poisoned their wetlands by denuding the forests. Now he is excavating what may turn out to be the grandest Mayan city of all, a 15-square-mile collection of buried temples and pyramids, called El Mirador, or "The Lookout," in Spanish. El Mirador, Mr. Hansen believes, was linked by limestone causeways to dozens of smaller cities, which at times battled other Mayan regions for supremacy. Today, the archaeologist is in the midst of his own battle. He fears the region will be destroyed if local villagers, who have won the right to log the rain forest, concentrate on the Mirador area. Just carving logging roads would be enough to wreck the place, he says, because farmers and city dwellers inevitably follow, burning down the woods to make cattle ranches. So he is harnessing archaeology, politics and Mel Gibson to convince Guatemala to create a 525,000-acre Mayan national park -- nearly the size of Rhode Island. He faces fierce opposition from some of the country's poorest residents, who need the logging revenue to pay for teachers and telephones. Sitting on a Mirador pyramid summit, Mr. Hansen pointed to mounds of trees on the horizon that he believes are graves of lost cities. Given the go-ahead, he would excavate the sites, and help build a railway to link them all for tourists who backpack or helicopter to the remote setting. "It's a kingdom," he said. "We can save a kingdom." The 52-year-old Mr. Hansen is as much entrepreneur as academic. He splits his time between his family's potato farm, which he built into a significant enterprise in Rupert, Idaho, and his archeological fieldwork in northern Guatemala. To finance his Mirador activities, he has loaned the project at least $285,000, according to a foundation he created to fund his archaeological work. (For years, Mr. Hansen was affiliated with the University of California at Los Angeles, but he recently switched his academic ties to nearby Idaho State University.) The 6-foot-4 archaeologist, who wears a signature blue bandana as a sweatband, can be very persuasive. In 2002, Alfonso Portillo, then Guatemala's president, helicoptered to Mirador, bought Mr. Hansen's vision and issued a decree declaring the expanse a protected area, a first step toward a national park. When opposition arose, Mr. Hansen recruited influential patrons, including Mr. Gibson, whose popularity has soared in Catholic Latin America with the success of "The Passion of the Christ." The Hollywood star is contributing money to Mr. Hansen's project and jetted to El Mirador this spring to check out the site for a new historical picture he is filming, "Apocalypta," about Mayan warriors. Mr. Gibson tried to keep his visit a secret, but word leaked out anyway, adding a dose of glamour to the Hansen project. A photo of the star with his arm around a cafeteria worker now hangs in a local airport, where a scrapbook of the Gibson visit is also on display. Opposition to the Mayan park runs along class lines, as does much everything else in this battered, violent land where even soda delivery trucks are accompanied by guards with shotguns. After a 36-year-long civil war ended in 1996, Guatemala awarded destitute villages the right to log the forest, so long as they agreed to limit their take to a level where the forest could regenerate itself. The government believed that by giving villagers an economic incentive to preserve the forest, they would be less likely to burn it down to create ranches and fields. But logging would be banned in Mr. Hansen's Mayan park, and the villages closest to Mirador would lose a big source of income. Two of the main villages, Carmelita and Uaxactún, were carved out of the jungle early last century, to provide housing and landing strips for workers who tapped trees for chicle, the main ingredient in chewing gum, then a boom market. That business died 40 years ago, as gum makers turned to synthetic substitutes. Logging money is once again providing a glimmer of prosperity in the old "chiclero" towns. In the past few years, Uaxactún, with a population of 900, bought its first communal satellite phones, started a junior high school and built two evangelical Protestant churches. Residents call the one where alcohol is permitted, "the sinners' church"; the other, where alcohol is banned, is "the saint's church." Mr. Hansen worries that the towns won't be able to hold out against pressure from ranchers and drug traffickers to torch the forest. He also argues that the people here would be better off economically if they worked as tourist guides or as hotel and restaurant workers. One version of his plan even envisions paying villagers to protect trees rather than log them. But his arguments have fallen flat among villagers who are so suspicious of outsiders that they refer to the capital of Guatemala City as "Gringolandia." "When high-class tourists come, they won't want to use us" as tourist guides, says Floridalma Bo, the secretary of Uaxactún's logging cooperative. After complaining that Mr. Hansen doesn't meet with villagers, she quickly declines any interest in his coming to town. "It would be best for him not to come," she says. "It could be like when the Spanish people came here and fooled the Maya by giving them trinkets." Aided by a media-savvy German spokeswoman, the villagers have adeptly turned Guatemalan public opinion against Mr. Hansen. Their lawyers sued to reverse the 2002 presidential decree. This spring Guatemala's current president, Oscar Berger, repealed it, while his chief of staff, Eduardo González Castillo, warned Mr. Hansen to butt out of Guatemalan affairs. "I have spoken to him in American terms," says Mr. González. "He should interpret [warning] letters as two strikes." Mr. Hansen and his supporters have worked hard to make amends. He's scheduled to receive an award from the president next month for his archaeological work. Now he is turning to wealthy Guatemalans to politick for him. Every Thursday, Francois and Nini Berger, who are cousins of President Berger and who own big stakes in cement and agricultural businesses, meet in their Guatemala City villa with allies to plot strategy. Over sausage snacks, the Bergers, who contributed $10,000 to Mr. Hansen's foundation in 2004, explained how their two-day jungle trek to Mirador helped them understand the importance of saving the ruins and rain forest, populated by howler monkeys and rare birds. "We want to convince the president to leave his legacy on Mirador," said Mr. Berger. They are counting on Mr. Gibson's help, too. The actor recently donated $500,000 for Mr. Hansen's work at Mirador and agreed to serve on the board of Mr. Hansen's foundation. He also plans to be a spokesman for the Mayan park project, say Mr. Hansen and another board member. Mr. Gibson's agent, Alan Nierob, says the actor won't comment on his precise role. During the summer, Mr. Hansen lectured on Mirador to a group of would-be tour guides from Carmelita, and flew to the Mayan ruin of Yaxha to talk to the cast and crew of the "Survivor Guatemala" TV show when it was being filmed. In January, he plans to meet with the mayors of some of the towns that have rights to log the forests. "Politics is more difficult than archaeology," he says. "Archaeology is all on the surface." Write to Bob Davis at bob.davis@wsj.com Please direct media inquiries to: GHF Press press@globalheritagefund.org or (650) 325 7520 top

El Mirador Nominated as World Heritage Site
Actuality: Community , Guatemala . Thursday, March 31, 2005 The government seeks fruition for the nomination presented to UNESCO for El Mirador archealogical site. Claudia Palma Mirador National Monument A UNESCO project team arrived to the country for the second time to push forward the candidature process of El Mirador archaeological site as a World Heritage Site. Guatemala sent this organization a tentative list of 16 locations. The list included colonial, ecological, and Mayan sites and routes used by Catholic priests, during the time of the Spanish colony, to evangelize the local people. El Mirador heads up this list. To this day, UNESCO has declared 788 locations as World Heritage Sites. There are 14 World Heritage Sites in the Mayan world. Arturo Paz, director of Cultural Heritage in Ministry for Culture, states that two of them are Tikal (1979) and Quirigua (1981). To define the unique universal value and what distinguishes it from others in the same category is the first step [to being nominated]. Another requisite, from a long list established by the international organization, is a strict plan for the preservation and management of the area, adds Paz. The forests of El Mirador are amongst the few remaining pristine jungles in Central America . El Mirador is located in the northern region of Peten, 160 kilometers from the city of Flores . It lies within the epicenter of the Mayan Biosphere Reserve and covers an area of 2,125 kilometers. The ecosystem is home to a massive amount of as yet unknown plants, species in danger of extinction. These characteristics, together with data still to be gathered from its buildings, transform the city in a potential cradle of the Mayan civilization. These conditions increase the historical value of the site, a very important stipulation for the nomination, "as the heritage must have an exceptional value" explains Luis Tiburcio, a UNESCO representative. Just over two months ago, the Ministry for Culture also presented for Untouchable Heritage Site nomination the Rabinal Achi, which is included in the list presented to UNESCO. Warrior spirits that dance in the Rabinal Achi tell the story of how the K'iche' Achi, the K'iche' king and his troops destroyed four communities of Rabinal and forced its inhabitants to pay duties. After a battle that lasted four days, the monarch was captured and taken to the palace for sacrifice. Before being executed, he was given the chance to dance with the princess of Rabinal and enjoy the royal drinks. 500 years later, the people of Rabinal believe that the spirits of the warriors, who died in that battle, are still present in the dance today. top

Inter-American Development Bank to Support Mirador And Protection of the Maya Biosphere

Above: FARES Dr. Richard Hansen is with president Chief of Staff announcing the $20-30 million IDB investment in Mirador area.

El Mirador - A New Guatemalan Strategy for the Maya Biosphere
Peten, Guatemala Sunday Sept 5, 2005 (translated to English) Mirador National Monument In what looks to be a model for new development and conservation, the Guatemalan government is looking to tourism in the Peten instead of agriculture to save the the forests of the Maya Biosphere. New tourism will be the future of development in Mesoamerica, returning prosperity. Only now, instead of Mayan harvests, there would be tourists and hotels instead of cattle. This is the new Guatemalan governmental proposal to stop the advance of the agricultural border in Petén and to avoid settlement and agriculture to invade the Maya Biosphere Reserve. This implies the economic transformation of the Peten, because tourism would become the motor for the development of the communities that live in this protected area and is the bet of the current Berger presidential administration. For that reason, the President initiated consultations with the civil society, non-governmental institutions, cooperative Organizations, industralists, mayors and political leaders of the northern department to discuss and obtain support for the project. The objective is that, in the long term, sites like El Mirador are major tourist attractions similar to Tikal, where most of visitors to Petén is concentrated. El Mirador, for example, by his historical value, could become the model for success in this project. In order to avoid further destruction of the forests, declared protected zones since 1990, the suggestion to the communities is to promote tourims-based activities dedicated to the observation of wildlife, birds and insects and other adventure tourism. This would extend the border areas between the biosphere and the present zone of agricultural earth use so they do not come further north in largest department in Guatemala- Peten. Several organizations execute small projects of this type. Now, the Executive Secretary of the Presidency, Eduardo Gónzález, is coordinating an effort with these organizations so that the project becomes a "Objective of The State". Phases of the Plan The official name of the project is "Integral Program of Sustainable Development in the Reserve of the Mayan Biosphere". Initiated in June of 2004, the project will be divided in several phases. While the total amount of the investment has not been defined, for next the four years, the program will have investment of between $5 million and $20 million dollars (Q40 million and Q160 million).The only thing defined at the moment is the cost of the studies for the feasibility study of the project which is being financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). This planning and consulations with stakeholders will be finalized by July, 2004. The next stage will involve strengthening governmental institutions in Petén. Old cities, new poles of investment In parallel, a group of experts contracted by the Government, is mapping and evaluating 125 immersed cities in the rainforest and other 200 smaller sites in this protected zone, because not all the Mayan ruins of the biosphere will support the arrival of tourists. The site with the greater attention is El Mirador, located seven kilometers from the border of Mexico and a two day trek by foot or on the back of a mule from the nearest community of Carmelita. El Mirador’s historical value makes it “a highest priority and destiny for development”, says Gónzález, “because the last investigations indicate El Mirador to be the cradle of democracy in the hemisphere and the largest structures existing in the Maya world.” The combination of exploring old Mayan large cities in the forest, complemented with wildlife, nature and adventure tourism, will obtain after several years, according to estimations of González and Perez, who the richer green zone of Guatemala is transformed into one of the main sources of income of the country. Credit available Although does not exist a number considered for the total investment that will become in Petén, the Inter-American Development Bank (I.A.D.B.) considers to finance the project. A delegation of the Bank visited the last week the area to know the program. That "ample process of conceptualización", says to Gerard Johnson, resident representative of the I.A.D.B. in Guatemala, allows the Bank to give support to the plan. President Óscar Berger and Johnson signed in Petén an agreement of loan by $550 thousand dollars (Q4.4 million), destined for the studies of tourist load in the reserve, among others. To it given $150 thousands in June are added. In the phase of execution the bank would grant more financing. The contributions of the I.A.D.B. in projects for Petén are near $20 million (Q160 million) annual. This one quick $500 million (Q4 billion) for all the country. Eduardo Gónzález esteem that each phase does not have to surpass $20 million (Q160 million). top